Hello again! I’m back with the final 9 of the 29 most important life lessons that I have learned over the past 29 years. If you haven’t read the last two posts, I’ll wait. Ready? Okay, let’s continue!
21. Starting back up with lesson number 29 - the importance of travel. Not everyone necessarily enjoys traveling. Long car rides, airplanes, expensive trips; I get it! Not everyone’s jam. I personally love to travel. Particularly places with tons of nature to get out of the city. But there was a time in my life where I didn’t really go on many trips. I was quite the homebody. But once I took my first ever road trip with a friend then I fell in love. Giving myself new places to explore and learn about has become such an important part of my life. So even if you don’t love to take long trips, I encourage you to even choose a new city not too far from you to go and explore. You never know what you might find!
22. A clean space can change everything. Whenever I experience a wave of anxiety or depression I take note of how my space is around me. It’s tempting to ignore any and all chores and responsibilities that we have. And focusing too much on the mess can give us task paralysis. I’ve totally been there! Now I am the type of person who generally loves to clean. I find that spending an entire day dedicated to cleaning my home is a self-healing task on its own. Not everyone likes to clean though. And I admit that sometimes I just lack any motivation to get my chores done. When this happens I make a list of the most important chores like dishes and laundry and I tackle one thing a day. Even getting one chore done for the day can make a difference.
23. Lesson number 23 is that everyone needs a creative outlet. For some reason when I got older I never thought I was all that creative. But what I didn’t realize is that being creative does not mean being a talented artist. It simply just means to use your imagination. I let the fear of not being good at something stop me from even giving it a try. Creativity is the best way to release. Whether it’s painting, writing, puzzles, music, cooking, crafting, problem solving, you name it, it’s a creative outlet. When we deprive ourselves of being creative we create the perfect storm of built up emotion and no way to release it. So go find yourself a hobby that brings you joy, makes you think, and gives you release. It’s worth it! Promise.
24. Imperfect is perfect. Everyone has flaws and insecurities, you just can’t escape it. We can be really cruel to ourselves sometimes. It’s hard to escape the cycle of comparison but the sooner you accept that everyone is special and different in their own way the easier it is to love every one of your own flaws. For me, rather than viewing those “flaws” in a negative light I’ve chosen to view all of my little flaws as perfect. For example I have a ton of moles and freckles all over my body and even though I love most of them there’s one on my face that used to really make me feel bad about myself when I was younger. I thought it was in an awkward spot and thought that anyone talking to me was only staring at my mole and not my eyes! Well I am really grateful that my feelings have changed. I view this mole now as a cute little imperfection and in that uniqueness it is imperfectly perfect!
25. Lesson 25 is the lesson I had to learn about how precious our planet is and just how important it is to take care of it. We all know that littering is awful and too much plastic is an issue. And while I don’t believe that it’s only up to us to make the change I also believe that if we can change something then we should. In my personal life I have changed quite a bit about my lifestyle to better suit sustainability with, of course, realistic expectations. This meant learning more about proper recycling, composting, using reusable items, using what you have, and shopping at farmers markets whenever possible. It’s not only on our shoulders to change things but doing what you can can make the biggest difference no matter how small.
26. My next life lesson is how important meditation is. I had no idea how to meditate when I was younger but thank goodness I learned. It’s tremendous how much this practice can improve your life. It was intimidating at first because I didn’t know how to be still with my own thoughts for long periods of time. So I started with just 5 minutes a day. That was it. 5 minutes a day eventually grew into 20 minutes a day. I usually use my alone time to practice meditation as a way of checking in with myself. Incorporating this into my everyday life has taught me how to organize and ease all of the racing thoughts that I generally have throughout my day.
27. Staying hydrated! Some of you may think, “duh”, but this was not an easy lesson for me! I used to be terrible about making sure I drank enough water. In fact, I ran on energy drinks at one point! The past few years, though, I have really prioritized drinking water throughout my entire day. I was shocked by how much better I was feeling overall once I replaced those bad habits. Sometimes we don’t understand how important some things are until we experience a lack of those things. And for me, water was one of them. So stay hydrated y’all I promise you’ll feel better!
28. Coming in at number 28 is learning not to take everything so seriously. This can of course tie in with making sure I laugh every day but it's also a reminder to not let things get to me so much. This can be really hard to do but with practice it gets easier. This even means dealing with road rage! Sure a car cut me off but I can either get really upset about it or I can let it go and move on. We cannot control how others act but we can control how we react. No one can hurt you if you don't let them and when you don't take what they say to heart then it ultimately cannot harm you.
29. Last but certainly not least, the last most important lesson that I have learned in 29 years of life is simply that absolutely everything that happens in life is its own lesson. Every person you meet, every choice you make, every tragedy and every celebration. Everything offers a lesson. And once you understand that then it’s in your hands. You can choose to look at everything as an opportunity to grow.
Final Thoughts:
So there you have it folks! That completes my list of the 29 most important lessons I've learned so far in life. Some may be obvious and some may be silly but I do hope that you can take away a little something.